Nakamura On a Roll in Moscow

Hikaru Nakamura is on a roll at the Tal Memorial in Moscow. In the sixth round, the 25-year-old American grandmaster won againstWorld Champion Vishy Anand, and he is now the clear leader with three rounds to go. Boris Gelfand, who went into the round tying for first with Nakamura, drew a long game with Magnus Carlsen. Caruana-Kramnik and Morozevich-Karjakin were also drawn.

Nakamura is clearly enjoying himself in Moscow, where he must be inspired by the hundreds of spectators that come to the playing hall every day. In a commentary room packed with chess fans, he compared his play with former World Champions Mikhail Tal (in his game with Kramnik) and Alexander Alekhine (against Karjakin). Today he added a few more names to this list, with his comment about his third move:

"More Russian style! Today I was feeling inspired by Spassky and Smyslov."

Nakamura's play today was applauded by another former World Champion: Garry Kasparov. His comments to the game were tweeted by Mig Greengard:

Somehow Anand made a lot of logical moves, but he wasn't in time to find a good answer to Black's counterplay on the kingside. The tactics worked in Nakamura's favour in both the middlegame and the knight endgame.

This was Nakamura's third win against Anand. So far he has never lost a classical game to the World Champion. And also after the game he's enjoying Moscow:

Only in Russia do you go out to dinner and the waitress recognizes you! Different level of respect and culture for chess here.

Anand now shares last place with Alexander Morozevich and Vladimir Kramnik. The latter played a very interesting game today with Fabiano Caruana; a game that deserved to last a bit longer! White immediately pushed his kingside majority (his main trump in this ending), then lost these pawns, got a rook to h8, but Black got a rook to e1, and both players' queenside pieces were attacked! Crazy stuff.

Vladimir Kramnik, still playing the Berlin Wall

Morozevich can also be a bit "crazy" at times, especially in the opening phase of the game. He's one of the most original players among the elite, which he showed in this round. In a Nimzo-Indian, Morozevich simply refused to castle, and just started running with his g-pawn. In the ending he kept on improving his position (instructive!) and eventually won a pawn on move 47. His opponent, Sergey Karjakin, had the luxury of a very active roo,k and with accurate defense he held the draw after a hundred moves!

The ever-original Alexander Morozevich

Boris Gelfand had lost his last white game to Magnus Carlsen, in March at the Candidates tournament in London, with the 5.Bg5 Queen's Gambit Declined. It was logical to choose the 5.Bf4 line today, with which he had beaten Michael Adams at the Alekhine Memorial in April. Carlsen reacted with a slightly passive but ultra-solid setup, and until move 30 he was doing fine. The Norwegian wasn't happy with a few of his just before the time control, when he got under some more pressure, but it was never serious.

The fourth draw was also the fourth ending of this round: Dmitry Andreikin versus Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. In a Scotch Opening the queens were traded on move 11, and on move 18 both players had two rooks and a knight. Perhaps it was the weakened pawn structure in both camps that made this ending quite interesting.

Thursday is the second and last rest day in Moscow. Play resumes on Friday with Nakamura having the white pieces against Gelfand. The other games are Carlsen-Morozevich, Mamedyarov-Anand, Kramnik-Andreikin and Karjakin-Caruana.

Comentarios

"Naka got rolled!" Gelfand proving why he was the candidate in the last championship! Im becoming a bigger and bigger fan - rooting for Gelfand! Wondering if Kramnik's spirit has been crushed by his near miss as the possible championship contender? Rare to see him lose once, but thrice!

"Nakamura was born in Hirakata, Osaka Prefecture, Japan, to Shuichi Nakamura, from Japan, and Carolyn Weeramantry, from America.[3]When he was two years of age his family moved to the United States. His parents divorced in 1990.[4] He began playing chess prior to the age of five and was coached by his Sri Lankan stepfather, FIDE Master and chess author Sunil Weeramantry."

This pretty much sums it up, I think. His mother was American and he moved to the US at the age of two (I guess he didn't learn how to play chess before).

I wonder if this is the first time ever both Anand and Kramnik lost their games to the same two players (Carlsen and Nakamura) in one tournament. At least Kramnik stopped it from being the same three players when he managed to draw Caruana.

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